


Just A Dream

by kuroashi



Series: 76 Kisses [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroashi/pseuds/kuroashi
Summary: A collection of GaaLee oneshots written for kiss-based prompts:#12 Kiss on the nose





	Just A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get back into writing GaaLee after about 10 years of not doing so. (Hopefully I'm not too rusty.) I decided to use a prompt list from Tumblr based on kissing to get a handle on their voices again. Completely random selections, not in order. Enjoy!

It was a bad night.

After almost a month of pulling all-nighters, thanks in no small part to the long discussions with the council that had run into the early hours, Gaara was exhausted. It didn’t help that midway through the discussions of the upcoming diplomatic visit from Iwagakure, Gaara and a small team of elite shinobi had had to provide backup to Kankuro in the northern wastes. What should’ve been a routine border patrol near the disputed region had unexpectedly turned violent when the patrol was ambushed by a cell of missing nin; they’d apparently been using an abandoned encampment in the area as their base. They were slippery and high powered, and it had turned into much more of a headache than it really should have.

Over the years, Gaara managed to start sleeping with some regularity, though it wasn’t easy to break the habit of a lifetime and he still worked through the night more often than he slept. Now that he was back and the enemy had been dealt with, he was ready to rest.

These days, sleep came much more easily now that he had Lee.

Lee, who slept like a coma patient, took up most of the bed and snored like a freight train.  

Gaara showered and did some stretches to work out the tension in his neck from sitting at his desk for too long. Then he climbed into bed after changing into a loose fitting t-shirt and boxer shorts, and found his sweet spot right under Lee’s outstretched arm. Gaara let out a low hum as he got comfortable; he rested his head on his chest, tangled one leg with Lee’s and slung his arm across his abdomen.

He started going through the meditation exercises Lee had taught him and focused on the soothing, rhythmic breathing of his lover. He felt himself begin to relax immediately, the fatigue in his body slowly filling his consciousness like a wave until it overwhelmed him.

Then, suddenly, he was being shaken awake.

“Gaara!” Lee was whispering harshly, his hands gripping his shoulders.

Immediately Gaara sat up, his mind already in battle mode. “What?! Are we under attack?” he asked sharply, his voice hoarse with sleep. He was blinking the grit from his eyes as he looked around the darkened room blearily. It wasn’t yet morning, but there was still a sense of imminent danger he couldn’t shake.

“No,” Lee said with a tired smile. “No, you had a bad dream. You were making this awful noise… I was worried about you.” He’d also kicked Lee a number of times, but he didn’t tell his lover this.

“Huh?” Gaara replied intelligently. He was panting a little and when he glanced around, he noticed that the sand in the gourd was churning a little, sensing his feeling of danger as it often did in battle, before he began exchanging blows with the enemy.

After a moment, he loosened his grip on Lee’s arms. He hadn’t noticed that he was clinging to his lover with white knuckles. “It was… It was just a dream,” he sighed, lying down again, his head on the pillow. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing.

“Just a bad dream,” Lee replied, and lay down with him, lying on his side next to Gaara and bringing a hand up to gently caress his cheek with his thumb. He smiled as Gaara’s eyes slid shut at the attention and his heart rate began to slow.

Once he’d calmed down a bit, Gaara glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the bedside table. 2:46am. He still had a few hours before he had to be up. If he laid there with Lee beside him, stroking his face and hair like that, he might be able to get back to sleep… but as he slowly woke up more and more, images from his nightmare came drifting back to him, frame by gory frame, like he was watching a film in slow motion…

The pain must’ve showed on his face, because before he knew it, Lee’s face was in his field of vision, gazing down at him with concern.

“Gaara? Are you okay? Look at me,” he said softly, cupping his face with both hands now.

Blinking owlishly, Gaara stared up at him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a moment, his thumb stroking the short spikes of hair at his temple.

“No,” he replied, bringing his hands up to cover Lee’s. “I just—I don’t want to think about it,” he mumbled. “I know it doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t change any of it. I don’t know if I want to, because if I hadn’t—if I hadn’t gone through it, would I have found you? My brother and sister? Naruto? Would any of it mean as much to me as it does now…? What does it say about me, that I don’t know if I would change it? I…”

He was rambling and not making much sense, but they were questions that were tugging on his psyche all the time, making him shake with the uncertainty, filling him with dread over the monstrosity in his nature—

He was jolted out of his spiral when he felt lips touch the tip of his nose.

Lee was a few inches away from his face, eyes warm and black and comforting, like a fire burning steady and gentle. It chased away all the sinister images in his head and left him almost breathless.

“I—”

“Shh…” Lee touched a finger to his lips and lay down beside him again, pulling him close and wrapping his slightly smaller body in a tight embrace. “It’s okay,” he said softly.

It always amazed Gaara how hearing Lee say such simple words made him feel better. As if all the pain and blood and terror that characterised Gaara of the Desert were just annoying little flies that could be swatted away… Of course, they weren’t, they both knew this, but from the way Gaara immediately felt better at hearing them, you could be forgiven for thinking so.

For a moment they just lay there like that; Gaara’s head cradled against Lee’s chest, gently stroking his hair and scratching his scalp a little every now and then.

After a while though, Lee began to speak softly. “I can’t say I have all the answers… I don’t really have any. I don’t know what any of it means. I just know that… everything you’ve done and worked for now means more than what happened when you were younger. And… I love you, no matter what. I always will,” he murmured, his voice piercing the still darkness of their bedroom.  

Gaara sighed and nestled closer, wanting to bury himself in Lee’s words, trying his best to accept them. He hummed in response, his voice low as he stroked his lover’s bicep. “Thank you,” he said softly after a long silence, unsure of how to respond.

Luckily, this seemed to please Lee, who smiled and pulled him closer. “Try to get some sleep. We’ll talk some more in the morning… If you have another bad dream, I’ll be here to wake you up,” he whispered, stroking a strong hand up and down Gaara’s back, rumpling the fabric a little.

Gaara blinked softly, his eyelashes tickling Lee’s bare chest. It would’ve been impossible for him to drift off again if Lee hadn’t been there, but right now, he felt safer than he did beneath the sand barrier.

It turned out to be a dreamless sleep.


End file.
